Sandwich selectmen focus on public safety questions

Selectmen have settled on three questions that will be fashioned and ultimately directed to voters in the latest round of public safety/facilities planning.

Paul Gately

Selectmen have settled on three questions that will be fashioned and ultimately directed to voters in the latest round of public safety/facilities planning.

How many firefighters and police officers should be added to the ranks, and how; and what would the costs total?

What should be done about a staffed fire sub-station for East Sandwich? There are options: demolish the current flood-plain building and rebuild on-site; add a second story to the facility; build in a new location; or place a sub-station at Sandwich High School as long planned?

And ultimately: what do voters want for a joint public safety building long planned for the intersection of Quaker Meetinghouse and Cotuit Roads, a facility that has been reduced in size and cost from $30 million to about $20 million?

Town Manager Bud Dunham said the public safety group will review these three broad issues and return to selectmen in September with refined recommendations, another of which likely will include double-checking the cost of a joint police/fire facility designed by Kaestle Boos Associates but rejected by voters at town meeting and the polls last year.

Dunham said his office and the public safety committee will also have to review an option that would allow for sub-station reconstruction on the current Route 6A East Sandwich property.

The public safety discussion Thursday night (July 10) was lengthy, and consensus on about how to proceed in the continuing “due diligence” phase of planning did not come easily.

Four selectmen said they must remain practical and pragmatic in their approach to asking taxpayers for funds to hire more personnel and invest in buildings, favoring a piecemeal -- or phased -- approach.

Selectwoman Susan James said this approach is somewhat viable, but she favors asking voters for a public safety lump sum “right up front,” even if the money is spent in phased fashion. She said a focus on East Sandwich coverage is fine but that the planning that is unfolding to date does nothing for South Sandwich.

Selectman Chairman Ralph Vitacco said “the big unknown” in Sandwich public safety planning involves the ongoing attempt to regionalize dispatching and what the impacts will be.

Selectman Patrick Ellis said he opposes any regionalization of dispatching because, ultimately, it will prove more expensive for towns.

Selectman James Pierce said it falls to voters to ultimately decide what will happen on the public safety facilities/personnel fronts. He said it remains the responsibility of selectmen to ask “the right questions” of voters.

The public safety review group has explored locations for sub-stations, including the property next to the public works department along Route 130 near the Route 6 ramp, the Wing School, Sandwich High School and the current station in East Sandwich.

The group also offered five overall options to selectmen, the best – members said – being construction of a sub-station next to the DPW and building an East Sandwich station at SHS; along with the joint headquarters facility at Quaker Meetinghouse and Cotuit roads.

Members agreed this is the most costly overall option, prompting selectmen’s discussion about the need to resolve problems with few resources, taking a pragmatic and phased approach to public-safety facility planning and costs, and making sure East Sandwich is duly covered in any request for funding heading to voters.

Doubt was expressed about SHS being a suitable fire sub-station location to satisfy East Sandwich coverage concerns as expressed at town meeting and the polls last year. Residents said they doubted response times from SHS would prove satisfactory.

There was discussion last week about the likely need for hiring 12 more firefighters and perhaps four more police officers.